BAGHDAD: Angry followers of radical Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr torched US and Israeli flags in a mass rally in Baghdad yesterday in protest at the two-week-old conflict in the Gaza Strip.
About 2,000 Sadr supporters, many waving Iraqi and Palestinian flags, gathered in front of the cleric's headquarters in Sadr City to vent their anger at the Jewish state and its chief ally after Friday prayers.
"We sympathise and understand the suffering of the people in Gaza, and the reason for their misery is the evil trinity of America, Israel and Britain," prayer leader Sheikh Jassem al-Motairi told worshippers.
"We understand their pain because the innocent are being killed by occupiers."
The crowds responded by chanting: "No, No, to the Occupier."
Motairi read a statement issued by Sadr earlier this week urging
Iraqis to take revenge against the US for supporting Israel's offensive in Gaza where at least 785 people have been killed since its launch on December 27.
"I ask the Iraqi resistance to engage in revenge operations against the US, the biggest partner of the Zionist enemy," Sadr said in the statement released on Wednesday.
Sadr's movement, which draws broad support from poorer Shias and dominates the vast and impoverished eastern Baghdad district of Sadr City, has long been a staunch opponent of the US-led military presence in Iraq.
Sheikh Salman al-Feraiji, manager of Sadr's office in the district, said the cleric's entreaty was aimed at all Iraqis.
"The call covers all Iraqi resistance groups and is not exclusive to Sadrist resistance. It is a general call," Feraiji said.
On the streets pamphlets of Sadr's newest edict were passed out and worshippers cheered as they carried Palestinian flags and banners, one of which read: "People of Gaza be patient, we are coming."
One of the worshippers, Kamel Saberi al-Sari, said the United States deserved to be punished.
"We want all nations to stop supporting the Zionist regime which is currently killing our people in Gaza," he said.
"It is our legitimate right to punish the Zionist regime's biggest supporter, the Great Satan, the US."
Waleed al-Hussein, a local shopkeeper, also railed against the campaign Israel has conducted against Hamas in Gaza with what he said was the help of the US.
"Any free-minded human being will call for stop of bloodshed once he sees the atrocities there," Hussein said sitting on a small prayer rug on the street.
"All divine religions have called for stopping the aggressor and the US that has been aiding the aggressor, so it shares the blame."
As prayers came to an end, a group of youths torched Israeli and US flags before people dispersed.
Despite yesterday's apparent show of solidarity with residents of Gaza, rights groups have said around 30,000 Palestinians refugees who lived in Baghdad had been ill-treated after the fall of the Saddam Hussain regime in 2003.
Many were abducted, tortured and murdered by armed Shia Muslim groups in the violent bloodletting that followed the US-led invasion in March 2003, according to the rights group Amnesty International.
It said in a report late last year that Palestinians had been targeted because they were seen to have received preferential treatment from Hussain, a Sunni like most of them, or were suspected of supporting Sunni insurgents. – AFP | 
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